Trajan - by Michael Hall, b. 1941

Painted Steel - 1982, Hamtramck, Michigan

For over 30 years, Michael Hall has been creating his distinctive visualization of sculpture in which fundamentals of Midwestern architecture are embraced in a dialogue with the modernist traditions of constructivism and minimalism. His sculpture, Trajan, is representative of inaccessible warehouses of cultural values and remnants. Trajan was the Emperor of Rome (A.D. 98-117), descended from an old Roman family, and was adopted in 97 by the Emperor Nerva. He was one of the ablest of the Roman emperors; stately and majestic in appearance, possessing a powerful will. In his internal administration Trajan was incessantly occupied in encouraging commerce and industries. The harbor of Ancona was enlarged and new harbors and roads were constructed. Numerous stately ruins in and around Rome give proof of this emperor's zeal in erecting buildings for public purposes.

In the 1980's Hall's sculptures became ambiguous monumental structures that appeared commemorative of the clarity, legibility and common rationality of modern space as epitomized by conventional high tech corporate architecture but in fact truly defied it. In effect, his sculptures were his agents that symbolized "anti-monument".